


Neither do you

by whatdoyoumean



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, 亜人 - 三浦追儺 & 桜井画門 | Ajin - Miura Tsuina & Sakurai Gamon
Genre: Based on a Dream, Gen, Groundhog Day, Magic, Superpowers, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-20 23:24:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16147739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatdoyoumean/pseuds/whatdoyoumean
Summary: Your magic sometimes latches on to empty spaces - that is, it harnesses the powers of people who have walked there before you.Your sister doesn’t dwell too long on what this means. Neither do you.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a dream I had, inspired by the fandoms in the tags above.
> 
> Warning for descriptions of injury and death.

She sneaks around a corner, her brother following. They dart between the shelving of one room, and into another. It’s a complicated building, but that's worked in their favor more than once. It might have been a museum, long ago. “A mansion, more like. All these passageways,” her brother responds under his breath. She doesn’t remember voicing her thoughts aloud.

x

Your magic sometimes latches on to empty spaces. It detects echoes of people who have stood there before you. Remnants of their ability always linger, and your power harnesses this. Your sister doesn’t dwell too long on what this means. Neither do you.

x

Her hand falls on a chest tucked into a corner, finally. She hefts the handle up onto her shoulder, looking back to watch her brother press a brick into the wall opposite, revealing a second chest. They run, retracing their steps for a little while before taking a new route. A white mop of a beast appears from the next hallway over, and she smiles a little, following it through a passage easily overlooked. She hears her brother’s soft giggle and her smile grows wider.

x

Your relief upon seeing the dog is palpable, heartening. You know things were likely to go to plan – all the training and orders running through your head tell you as much. Still, you can’t help but laugh a little, out of breath but not out of hope. It’s still possible. The dog is here, running ahead of you and your sister. The car is out back. You’ve got the chests.

It’s possible.

x

The adults are stalling for them, holding back the enemy. She knows they don't have much time. The countdown ticks in her head quite literally, as if it were her own power. It’s not, of course. It’s not her power. Sometimes she wishes she had one so simple. But then they wouldn’t have her help, and the mission would be so, so much more dangerous. Lethal.

Not that this, now, isn’t either of those things.

Not that her power isn’t either of those things.

Throwing open the trunk of the car, fresh air smacking her face, she thinks of one adult in particular – a sharp, grizzled man with muscles that belie his age. She thinks of his gaze, the shame – not at himself, much. More at the fact that they needed her, to involve her in something adults could hardly handle, much less two kids.

The man is kind and patient enough, given the situation. She likes to believe that he's a good man. But she isn't a mind reader. Unlike-

x

You watch as your sister slams her foot on the gas, neither of you wasting time on a seatbelt - they had none to waste. The adults can't hold out forever.

x

She rips out onto the beaten path and the wheels screech loudly, but that doesn’t matter because the dark leader probably knows, has already discovered that the chests are no longer in the building. She can only hope that the adults have a little more fight in them, and she doesn’t want to linger on what it means if they don’t. Because the opposition doesn’t take prisoners, and that means-

x

You’re keeping an eye out for pursuers but in the corner of your eye your sister stiffens, and it must be that clock they put in her head, the countdown grinding to a halt and when you whip your head back to look through the rear window again, sure enough, there’s a rumble across the horizon from the direction of the base, and dark clouds are rapidly closing in.

x

Fuck it all. This whole thing was a last-ditch attempt, really, a desperate one, and she isn’t less convinced of that after doing this over and over again. She’s been able to come up with better and better solutions with the adults after each failure. Different mode of transport, different distraction staged back at the base. But she’s had to explain it from the top each time, because after each reset she's the only one who ever remembers. And they can only strategize so much with few resources and zero outside help.

She knows all of this, but she can’t help the tears that well up. At failing, yet again. Failing at something so important.

x

You see your sister’s crying now, and you can’t help but wonder if she’s giving up a bit too early. The intruders are still pretty far behind, aren’t they? You’ve worked so hard for this one shot, you and your sister and the adults, and it seems to be going alright. Sure, their enemies are faster than anticipated but you and your sister are almost at the portal point. In fact, if the map (the one you both looked at so much it’s scored into your brains) is true ( _and it better be, haha_ ) the portal should be right through this patch of forest. You’ve got the chests with you, and the dog, and of course your daredevil-driving sister-

Wait, why is she-

There’s a tree right-

Watch ou-


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first chapter was the main piece. The rest is some follow-up. Thanks for the wonderful comments x
> 
> Warnings at the end of the chapter.

She wakes up to the tree in front of her, and that’s not right, is it. Why isn’t she back at the base? She tries to make sense of this as panic sets in, but the rumble behind her is louder than before.

She shouldn't be hearing that rumble at all. The collision with the tree should have fixed things. At this rate, the enemy will reach them soon, and the portal is so close, but she hears the humming start to peter out already.

That hum used to calm her, during training. Now it frustrates her. The car is a mess and she’s in no shape to lug a chest across the clearing. Pain crawls up her back.

She can’t even see where the dog landed (he’s bright white, why can’t she see him? Why is her vision so blurry?). Her brother will know where the dog is. He has his tracking ability. That was one of the first things to manifest. 

She does see where her brother is, at least, and she cranes her aching neck.

 

But-

 

Oh-

 

Her brother.

 

It must be a malfunction of her power, the way she can't hope that he's still alive. That hasn't happened before. She hasn't been able to just _know._

Not that she wouldn’t be able to guess at the sight of him, her vision sharpening the longer she stares.

He’s splayed out through the windshield, glass digging into his dead skull, a twist in his spine that sends a chill down hers; blood drips from her brow, but more drips from his dead, dead body-

Stop.

Pale, she starts bringing her hand to her neck, because that’s the trick, isn’t it? She’s done this so many times before, she keeps the knife up her sleeve and the needle in her pocket and the cyanide between her teeth.

She knows how someone goes about killing themselves.

Except this time she’s too far on the way to dying already, the concussion slowing her actions and her arm too weak to lift itself, the pill knocked out of her mouth-

She feels - she doesn’t know what she feels, but she senses something approaching, something malevolent. Her thoughts are jumbling up, and she doesn’t think it’s just the concussion, because something foreign is seeping into her psyche. She closes her eyes against dizziness.

She knows this death is different, somehow, and she doesn’t know how it could have gone so wrong.

An intentional death is familiar to her, it's happened so many times. She’s spent ages (or not, depending on how you tracked time) wielding her power and this was the result: living beyond limits. 

But perhaps there is a limit to her power, after all. Every option she'd prepared seems to have been knocked out of her hand, and the car’s impact with the tree should have killed her instantly. That was her intention.

As her consciousness starts to slip, she knows this death won't count as a choice. She always aims to die before her brother. And she hopes he has never had to see her like this, the way he is now. (His form that she knows is in front of her, that she can’t bear to look at. That she sees in the backs of her eyelids anyway.)

She fears that he’ll be left behind in this iteration, if she somehow travels back. He doesn’t have her power.

The ability to rewind events after an intentional death.

She’s not sure what happens now, after an unintentional death. 

A hand sets down on her shoulder. The cold of it reminds her of the grizzled man, and she feels a draw to it like it's his. And she hopes against hope that it is, that the plan hasn’t gone all awry. That things can be fixed.

He must be reaching his hand through the driver’s window, and she tries to open her eyes to see, but the life that’s been draining out of her suddenly picks up with alarming speed, and her last thought is: 

No. It isn’t him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for motor vehicle collision-related blood/injury/death, suicide attempt and reference to past suicides.


End file.
